Bottle Blonde Agency
by FrostForever
Summary: A client comes to the 221B Baker Street flat with a strange case that leads the pair of detectives to find out what happened to the mysterious artist's agency with a curious tendency to only hire blondes. Based off Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes book, The Red Headed League.
1. The Case

It was just another normal day at the Baker Street flat. Nothing seemed too much out of the ordinary as John had entered from his new morning walk routine. The door closed the afternoon sun out of the hole-in-the-wall entrance way as Mrs. Hudson, clad in a bright blue summer dress completed with matching jewelry called from the kitchen. The sound of her heels could be heard as she started toward the doorway between where John stood and the small downstairs kitchen.

"Mrs. Hudson?," John asked as he met her at the entrance way.

Mrs. Hudson had that bright and sunny smile playing innocently on her face. A playful, yet sweet expression that gleamed today much like that of a child who had just heard exciting news. "Did you see her?"

Her eyes shone as she looked at John with such a warmth that seemed to replace the lost sun rays in the room. However, the comment seemed out of the ordinary to the ex-military man as he asked with a confused expression, "...Who?"

Mrs. Hudson half squealed as she said the next part, "Sherlock's brought a girl with him!"

John paused for a moment, his expression making his characteristic "what?" face before quickly saying, "...sorry, what?"

Mrs. Hudson, ever the woman for gossip, began explaining, "Looked like she was in her mid-twenties. Pretty little thing. They're in there." She pointed up at the staircase, referring to the door of the flat. "Sitting room, from what it sounds like."

John gave his landlady a small nod of thanks, but wasted no time in getting up the stairs to see this strange happenstance for himself. Sherlock had brought a girl home. Sherlock? A girl? As in, he had found a female, or anyone for that matter and brought them home. To his home. Sherlock. Such a run of events seemed improbable. No, impossible seemed a better word.

John's hand tightened around the door of the flat him and his roommate shared before turning it, opening the door that immediately connected to the sitting room. Just as Mrs. Hudson had said, a young woman in her mid-twenties was sitting in a chair opposite of Sherlock. The woman turned, revealing bright blue eyes, adorned with a natural palette of eyeshadow and subtle black eyeliner and mascara set in to a pale face framed by long blonde hair. She smiled at John as he entered, revealing white teeth beneath red artificially-colored lips.

"Start from the beginning so my colleague can hear it," Sherlock said immediately as John walked into the room.

Quickly assessing the situation, and realizing it was just another client, and not in fact, a girlfriend of any sort, John gave a small nod of "Hello", accompanied by a relieved, "Hi".

"I...um...," the woman began, shocked by the sudden interruption of her story, but nonetheless continuing on after greeting the new member of the party, "Hello...well, I was just telling Mr. Holmes that-"

"No," Sherlock interrupted, "Start over. Exactly how you said it before, from the beginning with detail." John went to take his usual seat next to Sherlock, eyeing the woman with some interest.

The woman glanced from Sherlock to John, blue eyes conveying an emotion of mixed confusion and curiosity before restarting her tale for the incoming spectator, "A few weeks ago, my student, Ryan, came to me with a magazine article," she paused a moment to look at Sherlock as if to check if she was following his instructions correctly before continuing, "It said that there was a vacancy at an art agency for a client spot. Now, my own student, of course was interesting in the position, but...he pointed out something very peculiar. The agency only represents blondes. Now, not just any blonde, not ash blonde, dirty blonde, strawberry blonde, only natural bottle blondes. Naturally, he looked at me and said that I would be perfect for the position and that I should go in to apply..."

"Wait, so does he hire natural blondes or bottle blondes?," John interrupted.

The woman looked at him with a slight, intrigued smile as she said with half a laugh in her tone, "It's an expression isn't it?," she continued with a response,"Naturals only. Course when I got to the place, it was filled with blonde women and men. Ryan somehow pushed me to the front of the crowd and soon I was in the man's office. Mr. Luhrman, that's the name of the agent, he told me the details. He said if I got the position, he couldn't represent me right away, but he could give me 400 pounds every week I was employed. The only rules were that I had to come in every day from ten to fourteen and that I could not leave the room. He then told me about their benefactress, an elderly blonde woman, American, who had passed away. He assured me the work I would be doing was extremely beneficial."

Sherlock sat back in his settee, placing his fingers together in that most peculiar way he always did when he was thinking, placing them beneath his chin and closing his eyes as John continued to watch the client interestedly, taking in the account with a slight frown displayed plainly on his features.

The woman looked to Sherlock, uncertain whether or not to continue. She looked to John whose interest shown clearly and undoubtedly, "Um...anyway. He looked me over and then tugged at my hair. Told me he'd been fooled by wigs and dyes. Said he needed a sample of it to test its legitimacy. I let him cut off a little and sure enough in two weeks I got an email, telling me I had the position. Enclosed was the address and he had told me to bring my own art materials. When I arrived, on the desk was the English dictionary alongside a note instructing me to illustrate every word on canvas-sized paper. Now, I didn't ask why. It was 400 pounds and not exactly difficult work. You just don't question a thing like that. So, for about three months, I drew for him and I never once left that room. He paid me as he said every Friday. Then, one Saturday morning, I came work and a message stated "The Blonde Artists Agency has been permanently dissolved October 16th, 2013". I asked around and no one had ever heard of a Mr. Luhrman, not even the landlord who had rented out the room!"

At this, John glanced over at Sherlock, trying to spot a reaction on his unresponsive companion's face.

After a few seconds of silence, the woman opened her red lined lips and in a half desperate, half impatient tone asked, "...so...will you take my case?"

There was a short silence before Sherlock opened his blue eyes, resting on the woman for only a moment before stating matter-of-factly, "As far as I'm concerned, you don't have a case. You want to know where this Luhrman man went because you feel cheated out of pay and as far as I can see, you've only gained a grotesque amount of money, as well as knowledge about a multitude of words beginning with the letter 'A'."

John only sighed at the harsh remark and looked almost sympathetically at the blonde who asked awed, but nonetheless with a sense of calm, "So, you're not taking it?"

"Obviously not. Get out of my flat."

"Hold on, hold on...," John heard himself say as he began to turn on Sherlock, "You don't find this case appealing at all?"

Without any interest, "Maybe I'll look into it later." He stood from his seat and walked into the kitchen, standing at the central counter that was littered with tubes, bunsen burners, and various chemicals that were more than likely poisonous and possibly illegal. "Leave the address of this agency with John." He lifted a beaker with a clear blue liquid. "However, keep conversation to a minimum, I think he likes this case just as much as he'd like to remove your skirt."

"Sherlock!," John exclaimed, a light shade of red beginning to flare up on his cheeks as he shifted his gaze from his "friend" to the woman apologetically on both their behalves, "This is absolutely not true." And then with quick haste, "N-Not that you aren't-...not that I wouldn't be intereste-I mean-" As he fumbled for a politically correct statement, he brought his hands to his face in exasperation.

The blonde only smiled, "I haven't introduced myself. My name is Jacklyn Wilson."

"John Watson," he said politely as he extended a hand with an embarrassed smile. Sherlock glanced over, but said said nothing.

Jacklyn took his hand with a warm smile and a firm, yet delicate, shake. As her hand fell back to her side, "Um...probably should have some pen and paper for that address."

John paused a moment, looking into those charming blue eyes before he realized she had been talking. "Oh! Oh, right...Sorry..." He stood and began to look around the messy flat flustered as Jacklyn only smiled as she waited patiently, finding the man in the jumper quite charming in an ordinary subtle way.

Finally, spotting a pen and yellow notepad on his desk next to his laptop, he cleared his throat and handed the items to the young woman with a still flustered and final, "Okay."

Jacklyn wrote the business address, as well as her own. She also was not shy in writing down her nine digit phone number in the fluid black ink of the ballpoint pen. John took the paper thankfully, looked down at those nine little numbers, scrawled out in bubbly penmanship and smiled back at her in pleased surprise.

"We'll be in touch," she said softly with a small smile playing on those cherry red lips.

"Uh, yes, definitely. We'll...uh...We'll do that. ...Yes," John responded, ever the romantic. With that, the woman picked up her dark red pleather bag and took one last look at the odd pair, Sherlock at the countertop fiddling with his substances as though no one else were in the room, and John looking at her with that unmistakable flirtatious grin. That was the last image she saw of the two before exiting through the dark wooden door.

As she exited and the last bit of her white skirt was seen through the crevice before the door had closed, John finished nodding a small final "goodbye", still a little flustered. Sherlock coughed from behind him as John ignored his flatmate, reflecting on what had just occurred. However, Sherlock's coughing did not let up and the sound of a shattering glass vial was the next to reach John's ears. He turned around quickly, "Jesus! ..What's wrong?"

"I'm n-," Sherlock was cut off by a series of his own heavy cutting coughs.

"Sherlock!," John exclaimed in concern as he quickly made his way over to his companion, taking only a second to glance at the many strange and foreign liquids on the countertop. The coughing did not let up in the slightest as Sherlock began to sink to the floor on his knees, but not before John could catch him and bring him back to his feet, offering strong and steady support, "Sherlock! Jesus..." Sherlocks eyes closed tightly as he began to gag and fall out of John's grasp and down to the tiles of the kitchen floor, hunched over on his knees. John followed the man down, leaning beside him, remaining calm (or at least allowing his voice to appear thus), "Alright, just stay calm, try to breathe."

"I-I would, but-", another round of coughing and gagging from the great Sherlock Holmes, "-that scene made me feel so sick that I don't think I can recover."

Silence.

Complete silence.

And then...

"...you...DICK...You complete DICK," John could do nothing but just simply stare at Sherlock with a mixture of anger, awe, shock, and a million others.

"Oh please, are you actually considering having relations with that woman?," Sherlock inquired, getting to his feet, "Mind the glass."

Ignoring the last comment and joining him up off the floor as to which emotion he was feeling became clear (anger), "That is none of your business."

"You are. Ah," he quickly started toward the paper with the address...and the nine seemingly incoherent, yet for some reason so obviously relevant black numbers.

John followed and was just out of reach of the yellow notepad, missing the opportunity to grab it by only a few seconds, "Give that here."

"No." Sherlock held the piece of paper high over his head, inspecting it far out of reach of his shorter companion, "She took care in writing it."

"Sherlock!," John exclaimed making a grab for the piece of paper.

"Nope!" Sherlock moved the paper just out of his reach and ran over to the couch, disadvantaging John's height even more so.

Attempting not to steam, John followed with a brisk walk, "Sherlock, stop being a baby."

Eyes never leaving the black ink, "I'm not being a baby, you're being a horny teenage boy."

Flabbergasted and looking up at the couch from the ground below, "Okay, see, that statement was immature."

"And calling someone a baby isn't?"

Open mouthed and staring at the self proclaimed sociopath, he looked dumbfounded as he attempted to think of some clever comeback. His mouth formed different vowel shapes, but nothing seemed to come out until he finally settled on the most intelligent response he could muster up at this point in time, pointing, "Shut up."

Sherlock smiled triumphantly at the piece of paper.

After a beat, "For God's sakes, Sherlock, just give me that paper."

He released it and it went fluttering to the floor, "Oops."

"You're an arsehole," John said, stooping to pick the paper up.

Sherlock finally stepped down from the sofa, walking back toward the kitchen, blue-green eyes switching focus between the different vials and test tubes, "Are you going to call her?"

"Once again, none of your business," he said looking at the letter and then removing his flip phone from his pocket to enter in Miss Wilson's contact information.

"You're going to call her. Wait at least a day or else you'll sound too desperate."

Letting out a shocked laugh and turning his attention back to his companion with a hint of sarcasm inlaid in his voice, "Oh please, Sherlock, tell me more about your dating tips!"

"I can give you more interesting date ideas than just the boring and overused cliche dinner and a movie, followed by sometimes...physical exercise." Sherlock looked at the floor, considered the glass for a moment, then decided John would pick it up later, stepping over it and turning on the stove.

John crossed his arms, making his "uh-huh okay sure/done" face nodding with a terse nod, "Alright, go ahead then, let's hear them."

The mad scientist tilted his head to the side in a fluid motion, taking a glass beaker from behind him and transferring red liquid from the smaller vial into the beaker, "Well, you could go to the circus, hike and have a picnic, perform an autopsy, go bowling, take a day trip to a museum..."

"An autopsy? Yeah, fantastic first date, she'll love it!"

"You never know."

"Yeah. You do."

"Oh, _I_ know, but you rarely do."

Incredulously, "She doesn't concern you."

"She's my client," setting the beaker over the fire with metal tongs, holding it by the neck.

Ignoring his compatriots actions, having been desensitized to the odd and unanticipated actions of his flatmate,"Yeah, and she's my...Nevermind. And by the way, she's _our _client. Not just yours."

"Aw, already possessive I see."

"Shut up. I thought you didn't want to take her case."

Without a beat to separate the conversation, "Do you like instrumental music, John?"

Again, another quirk of Sherlock Holmes that Doctor John Watson had gotten used to, reacting as if music had been the topic of discussion the entire time, "It's fine...why?"

Removing the bubbling beaker from the fire and pouring it into another strange clear substance, "Why don't you ask her to a cup of coffee tomorrow? You can go on your date while I investigate and afterward we can see the symphony."

Sarcastically, "I thought I was supposed to wait at least a day."

"Text her tomorrow morning. Or not, I'm not interested in her, but her student is a different story entirely."

"Her student?"

"Yes, her student,"as the liquid mixed it began to make a sizzling sound, "Isn't it so painfully obvious?"

Beginning to lose patience, "No, apparently not. What is it?"

"The student is involved," Sherlock sighed. He could almost sense the confused look on John's face. Poor thing. What was it like to not be able to pinpoint the simplest of deductions? "An entire block crowded with prospective clients and one man manages to bring a woman to the agent before anyone else. A client who happens to get the job without any demonstration of skill or display of past experience."

"Okay, so the student...We need to find out more about him."

"_I_ need to. _You_ can go on your date."

Keeping one eye on the mixture that had begun to bubble, "You're sure you don't want help?"

Finally looking at John for the first since he came into the room with a sly smile, "Oh, you'll be plenty helpful."

Ignoring the liquid that began to ooze from the beaker onto the countertop as he studied Sherlock's face, "...You're doing the look. The other look, where you know something I don't and you _know _you know something I don't."

With a hint of mock offense, "I don't know what "the look" is. It's just my face."

"No, this isn't _the _look. It's one of the looks."

"So now there are multiple?"

"Yes, there's a lot of them."

Sherlock shrugged slightly and began heading to his room, "I'll see you in the morning."

Then the door was shut and the conversation closed. John gave a small nod to himself, then down at his hands. Those nine digits. There was something going on, what wasn't Sherlock telling him? What _did _he ever tell him? And at that, when were they not some kind of cryptic message that he would only find the meaning of after the fact? Surely, Jacklyn was not-

"Oh, and John. Don't touch the solution, it may or may not be mildly corrosive," Sherlock said popping his head out of the door for a second before immediately retreating back into his room like a turtle into his shell.

John would call her that night.


	2. The Doctor and the Artist

An artist and a doctor. One wouldn't think the two would truly hit it off. One, left-brained, book smart, a former army man who had at one time in his life let a psychosomatic limp limit him from the adventure his entire life would later become. The other, a right-brained woman, creative, who traveled from Shanghai to Los Angeles while studying art, never once allowing life to pass her by whether it was a broken foot or a chipped tooth falling off a horse in New Zealand. A few hours before the date, after John had called out to Sherlock multiple times, knocking at his door, and eventually settling with leaving a note by that still sizzling "possibly mildly corrosive" solution to tell his partner that he was leaving, John had had his own doubts as well.

She was younger than him. ...possibly a lot younger than was comfortable. Eight, maybe ten years? However, they were both adults and wasn't she the one who had given him the number first? She was in her twenties, he in his thirties, but she was definitely no child. Jacklyn was a full grown woman capable of making her own decisions and if he had felt attraction toward her, and her him, than really, where was the harm? It was not uncommon that people got together with such a large age difference, rare, yes, but not uncommon. Did that even make sense? Sure. Sure it did, John thought to himself. It did.

He ended up taking a cab to her house, a small little one story house on the outskirts of London, away from the city. When he had knocked on her small white framed door, a young man, exactly twenty (John would learn this later after chatting with Jacklyn), with dark green eyes and dark brown hair opened the door, John had been a tad shocked and confused. He had thought he had called on the wrong house. He thought...until Jacklyn had introduced the lad a Ryan, her student. John had thought he had been interrupting a lesson, but it was soon revealed that Jacklyn and her student actually lived together. That seemed a bit...strange, but John only brushed it off as something different between the book world and the art world. Things tended to be more liberal.

The dinner went better than John could have hoped for. She laughed at his jokes, he marveled at her adventures...they found they had much more in common than they initially expected. They both lived with a strange and yet somehow charming flatmate, enjoyed reading (Jacklyn had even read John's blog), and enjoyed the same rush of adventure...to some extent. The best thing about Jacklyn was that she listened to him and that was a nice change from the shut in Sherlock or his friends that Sherlock claimed actually really disliked him.

A few hours passed and John managed to sneak away for a few minutes, calling Sherlock to see if they were still going to go to the symphony. After fruitless attempts to contact the self proclaimed detective, John took it upon himself to extend the invitation to Jackie. Once at the grandiose theatre, there was still no sign of Sherlock. After the couple had taken their seats in the velvet red chairs, the lights dimmed and sure enough as they went up John had discovered the reason for the unresponsiveness.

Sherlock Holmes stood center stage, violin in hand. He lifted his bow and began to play. John watched, mouth agape, knowing that surely Sherlock had found a way to inconvenience the actual violinist. Jacklyn almost asked, but John just nodded. No doubt the music was beautiful. Sherlock could play the violin well...better than well. One would think the man had spent a majority of his childhood at a conservatory for the arts instead of in a psychologists stuffy examination room.

After the show, and after John...and Sherlock...had seen Jackie home, the pair received a distressing call from Lestrade about a bank robbery. John and Jackie gave each other a quick parting kiss before the dynamic duo made their way into a cab. Sherlock made lightning fast observations about Ryan, the house, and even Jacklyn while waiting for them. The case Lestrade had posed for them was only two blocks away from Jacklyn's house. Close enough in Sherlock's mind to link the two seemingly separate cases. The vault had been completely cleared of thousands of pounds, slowly over the past few months. The same amount of time it would take to get from "Aardvark" to "Apothecary".


	3. Twelve

"...them?" John asked as the cab pulled forward, yellow and red lights donating light to the interior, "Who's them?"

Sherlock replied in a hushed tone, "Oh please, a normal person couldn't pull this off alone."

"Maybe they're not normal."

"That has crossed my mind, it's why I told you to bring your gun," he glanced at John for a moment as if checking to see from his expression whether or not his flatmate had done as instructed and then carried on with a grim and ominous expression, "From what I've seen, there are sixteen possible ways tonight can play out, and a good majority do not work out in our favor."

"Sixteen?" Initially shock was relevant on the ex army doctor's features and then a look of mixed curiosity and skepticism, "How did you even come up with that number?"

"By thinking of the possible outcomes, assuming we get to our posts safely."

The car came to a stop, the driver taking a quick glance at the shorter man directly behind him in the rear view mirror and then curiously drifting to the man to his left before quickly returning brown eyes to the road. This was not an unkind glance, in fact, it was nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just one of those negligible actions that humans sometimes take upon themselves to perform.

"Okay, so we set up our posts and wait...and then what-if they show up?"

"If they show up, they could be armed and then sixteen possible events could occur."

"No negotiating? At all?" The cab makes a right.

"That is one of the events, but then there is also the possibility of a false negotiation."

There is a brief pause before John looks back to Sherlock,"Wait, okay...Can you just explain this case to me one more time?"

"You really don't understand it?" the self proclaimed sociopath asks, genuinely awed as the cab pulls up to a large Romantic style bank with large marble pillars and steps. The bank was definitely not that of any old chap. This was a bank in which some of London's upper class socialites deposited their thousands of pounds each week. This was the kind of bank made for those who made money every second without lifting a finger. This was the kind of bank one would expect would have state of the art security, security that the bank's many investors would count on.

Sherlock took a few crumpled bills from his trench coat pocket and paid the man quickly and briefly without a second thought. The cabby watched the two go, again with one of those brief and fleeting glances. An odd pair those two were. Even odder that he had driven those two to a police scene where caution tape seemed to detract from the beauty of the classically styled building, red and blue lights reflecting off the marble as more sirens began approaching. The cabby counted the money, a bit over the fare, but the two men were already too far away to call out the mistake and then drove away from the sight.

"Do you have to be so condescending? All the time?," John asked as they began walking up the steps towards Lestrade, who was standing in the middle of the procession of stairs, looking down at his phone in his usual business attire.

"I don't mean to be, it just baffles me that people like you can be such idio-Lestrade! Great to see you again."

John followed with a frown and was just short of protesting Sherlock's statement before Lestrade, surprised at the greeting, cut him off without knowing it, "Good to...see you too, is everything alright?"

As Sherlock spoke, he looked around, eyes never resting on one particular spot, searching for something,"Yes. yes, fine...", his expression dropped, finally settling his eyes on Lestrade, "The banker is no longer joining us?"

Lestrade shook his head, "Doesn't look like it."

"Twelve," Sherlock muttered under his breathe. A word that only John had heard and understood clearly. Twelve possibilities on how the night was bound to turn out.

"What?", Lestrade asked.

"Nothing," Sherlock gave a small curt smile, "Let's just get to the vault."

"Alright," Lestrade said as he began leading the way up the rest of the large stairs and through the bank's large glass doors. They walked behind the banker's bulletproof windows and clerk desks back to where the safes were held. They continued down the hall which went from the least amount/lowest security to the back where the most amount of cash was mingled with the highest security. The vault in question was stationed at the very back, covered by a large metal security door. Not only was the door untouched, but it took Lestrade a code, fingerprint (just registered this morning to give Lestrade the proper clearance for the investigation) scanning, and a key in order for the heavy metal to even be capable of being opened.

"Here we are," Lestrade said quietly, almost under his breath as they entered. The room looked like a simple continuation of the hallway, except completing the cul de sac of lockers, which stretched the length of the small room on all three sides. Once again, there was no sign of a break in, but something was curious. The lockers lacked locks. Although there was a high security door, on each individual locker there was only a latch. No combination, key, or fingerprint necessary to open one of its small silver doors.

Sherlock took a step into the room, circled it once with a quick survey, "Now we wait. Keep the room dark. Stay completely silent."

Without question, Lestrade motioned for one of the two back up cops to turn of the automatic fluorescent lights. Although the request would seem odd coming from or being received by any other, Greg had developed a relationship built on trust through his time working with the sociopathic genius. He trusted whatever actions Holmes had requested of him. Well, most is a better word. He trusted most of Sherlock's requests.

The five men sat in the darkness, John's hand on his gun, against the metal lockers. The room was immersed in a dark silence; no one dared move or make a noise that would jeopardize the investigation. As time passed, John couldn't help but think of the twelve different scenarios Sherlock could possibly have imagined. Death was most certainly a player in at least one or two, it always was in their line of work.


End file.
